Online cinema
Les chroniques d’une mère indigne
Myriam Bouchard
Les chroniques d’une mère indigne (The Chronicles of an Unworthy Mother) is the very first French original web series produced in Canada. The web-series ia a 26 episodes of 2 to 6 minutes inspired by the Quebec novel Les chroniques d’une mère indigne (The Chronicles of an Unworthy Mother), by Caroline Allard. The Chronicles of an Missfit Mother is a web series that portrays the life of Missfit mother during her maternity leave. Through the story of episodes from his daily life and staging his little one family (Father Missfit, Daughter Missfit and baby), Missfit Mother confesses to us her crimes, her venial sins, his inability to be perfect and his white lies. She opens the door to her bungalow suburbs and invites us to laugh with it about the unsightly aspects of pregnancy and and childbirth, difficulties in married life with children, … of everything that weaves the daily life of a young mother but which we rarely dare to talk about.
M’entends-tu?
Myriam Bouchard
Can You Hear Me? is a dramatic comedy that plunges us into the unusual daily life of Ada, Fabiola and Carolanne, three long-time friends from the midst of poverty.
23 Décembre
Myriam Bouchard
On December 23, the day before Christmas, the frenzy of the holiday season is everywhere and seizes many… In this ensemble film, we follow Elsa Lévesque (Virginie Fortin), a hardened bachelor who wants to find love; Stéphanie and Alex (Catherine Brunet and François Arnaud), who are expecting their first child; a singer (Stéphane Rousseau) who returns to the stage after a break; a woman (Guylaine Tremblay), mother of two daughters, wishing to organize a perfect Christmas; a teenager (Tao Vigneault) who carries a big secret; a man (Michel Barrette) who feels jostled by the modern world; and the new manager of a large hotel (Bianca Gervais) who must prove her worth for the position. Their destinies intertwine randomly on this already tumultuous day, crowned by a snowstorm… And if they all have a personal vision of a magical Christmas, they will discover that the perfect moments may be in the imperfections and contingencies.
Les sept dernières paroles
Sophie Deraspe
Sophie Goyette
Caroline Monnet
Ariane Lorrain
Inspired by Franz Joseph Haydn’s masterpiece The Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross, Les sept dernières paroles (The Seven Last Words) examines the experiential states and rituals of humankind through the seven themes of this musical composition: forgiveness, salvation, relationship, abandonment, distress, triumph and reunion.
Illusions of Control
Shannon Walsh
Who stands up when everything falls apart? A riveting meditation on resilience in the face of disaster, Illusions of Control unfolds in landscapes irrevocably shaped by human attempts to dominate them. Five women confront unbearable crises: Silvia searches for her missing daughter in the deserts of northern Mexico; Yang attempts to hold back the expanding desert in China; Kaori mobilizes mothers as citizen-scientist to monitor radiation in Fukushima, Japan; Stacey builds on Indigenous knowledge to confront toxic legacies in Yellowknife; and, Lauren stands at the crossroads of a serious health diagnosis in Chicago. Each story reveals surprising ways to live on, and reimagine life in the ruins.
Au pays des Mille-Îles
Lisa Sfriso
Artist Lisa Sfriso was given unprecedented access to the 16mm archives of the Thousand Islands Yacht Club‘s Archive Fund as part of a call for artistic projects by the Centre d’archives de Laval. This unprecedented access allowed him to create this installation: the story of the years of vacationing on the banks of the Mille-Îles River in Laval, from 1945 to 1960, a look at the past in order to question what has become of our rivers and our shores today. The artist has drawn from the raw material photograms bearing the imprint of those who created it and the traces of past years, in an approach that aims to minimize the ecological footprint and to make us think about our natural ecosystems and their preservation over time.
Babysitter
Monia Chokri
Cédric loses his job at Ingénérie Québec after making a sexist joke that goes viral. Encouraged by his intellectual brother, Cedric starts therapy and writes Sexist Story, a book that aims to be revolutionary and to attack misogyny. Nadine, exasperated by her boyfriend’s introspection and herself in need of dreams and adrenaline, is tempted by the surprising games initiated by the mysterious babysitter. Adapted from the play, the comedy Babysitter plunges even further into the unconscious, the desire to dominate the other and the drift of the couple.
Spoon
Michka Saäl
Dialogue between a black American poet locked up for life and me. In a tone of confidence, Spoon evokes his 19 years of somnambulistic life until his conviction, then his discovery of poetry and writing. The initiatory story of his descent into hell is inscribed in the hollow of the images of his country, the Mojave desert, and of my interior landscapes, when emotion summons them there. Because Spoon explains, that if he did not write, He would be a shadow boxing with death.
La femme de mon frère
Monia Chokri
Sofia, 35, sees nothing bright about her future. She’s unemployed despite having a Ph.D. in political philosophy, pregnant and living with her brother. To make matters worse, the brother falls in love with Sofia’s gynecologist… Winner of the Coup de cœur award in the Un certain regard section at the Cannes Festival, La femme de mon frère showcases the immense talent of director Monia Chokri. An existential comedy shot through with malaise and physical comedy, directed in a seemingly effortless vintage style, the film stars Anne-Élisabeth Bossé, whose intense energy brings her neurotic but endearing character to life.
Fabrique-moi un conte – Blanche-Neige
Myriam Bouchard
Miryam Bouchard reinvents Snow White in her own way. Fabrique-moi un conte: Eight directors adapt eight classic tales in a modern and contemporary way. They have carte blanche except that… It’s the public who decides which tale they adapt, the main location where the action will take place and the performer. An original way to revisit our classics!
Sullivan’s Applicant
Jeanne Leblanc
Sullivan’s Applicant explores the mundane, the everyday task of commuting into a city and encountering all of the barriers and frustrations along the way. However, although the film captures this idea of ‘the everyday’ it also illustrates how things can happen unexpectedly, forcing us to see that things happen for a reason, and that there are silver linings to almost everything bad that comes our way. This film was part of a larger project which explored the character of the city of Montreal. Each film was to examine smaller corners of everyday life in Montreal and make those moments accessible and relatable to those who would see them.
Sortie de secours
Jeanne Leblanc
In a post-apocalyptic universe, two men are looking for a way out… A simple and effective staging, well supported by the acting, creates this feeling of being trapped.